


Whatever Walked There, Walked Alone

by timeless_alice



Series: In Our Room, After The War [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Isolation, OCs just brushed over, The Lonely - Freeform, mood piece, trapped with a family you left in the apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeless_alice/pseuds/timeless_alice
Summary: The Lukas family enjoy their little pockets of the apocalypse. A family gathering where no one speaks, no one sees.And there are two kinds of Lukases: those who stayed, and those who left.
Series: In Our Room, After The War [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126724
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Whatever Walked There, Walked Alone

Deep in the woods and perched within a secluded clearing far from the eyes of any outsider, there stood a manor. It seemed to be as ancient as the trees that bordered its land, rising like a beacon out of the fog that billowed across its grounds. And while all was silent within those old walls, it was not still.

Clouds of fog filled the halls of the old manor, rolling across the hardwood floors and clinging to the figures that drifted like ghosts from room to room. Those with their faces pinched, faces stern, devoid of any color that may have perhaps marked them as among the living; dressed all in crisp black, fit for a funeral that could have been their own. They did not acknowledge each other as they passed in those ancient halls that never seemed to end, traveling along the same routes they always did. Some would filter into rooms to sit in old armchairs in sitting rooms where a fine layer of dust coated bookshelves and tables never touched, never used. And then they would leave to continue on their near endless patrol.

Eventually all within would make their way to the dining hall and the too long table that waited for their inevitable arrival. They would take seats where things had been carefully set for dinner, though there was no food to be seen in the dimly lit room. They would just sit in silence, staring but not seeing those who sat with them. A crude echo of a family gathering for a holiday, from those who were bound by blood and by the mists that seeped through them. Formed them, where they had been worn away by time and distance. If one were to catch their eye at this table, or perhaps in the halls, they would see swirling clouds in the iris where there should have been light before their attention was averted.

After a few minutes or hours or an eternity for all time mattered in this place of endless halls and endless walking, they would rise as one and file out without a single sound being uttered. It was with an almost mechanical slowness, unrushed to be out with a perfect indifference to what was around them. And so the cycle began anew for this pocket of the Lukas family.

It was enough to make one scream, in those fleeting instances where color returned to cheeks and a mind prickled with distant memories. Ones that would be swallowed up before they could think to speak, to break that silence in desperation to escape that which they had thought they had already succeeded in doing. And then there would be nothing, until the next time the Forsaken decided to loosen its hold just enough to let them know of the yawning void that existed in their soul.

A young woman who could recall a weight in cradled arms, points of warmth fighting against the cold that always clung to her. A wedding band around her finger, pricks of a gentle heat at her neck and jawline from something she never thought she'd have. She could chase that down, hunting for the swell of joy that should have been there, for a voice and a babble, but the more she pushed the more it slipped from her fingers until it faded into nothing.

A young man, tasting the hint of pine and smoke on the air. Memories of late nights with a glowing phone, of early mornings to meet the rising sun played at the fringes of his mind. A presence at this side, one infrequent but valued all the same. He reached for a face, for a voice to go with the soft laugh that rang from a hundred miles away in his ears, but it was soon eroded by mist until it was gone. Like it had never been there to begin with.

An old man with joyful noise playing through his head. The voices of children, indistinct and echoing as they faded in and out between the sound of footsteps. Laughter, then, the lingering of warm embraces from those he could not recall but left a yearning against his skin nonetheless. There was a light, one that should have been enough to pierce the fog for all its brightness, but it too was swallowed up. And he was left nothing but those halls.

And still they walked, those who had pledged their lives to this and those who had fled. Now trapped with the family they had clawed their way out of, unable to break free and find those who may understand. Because there were many, just enough to offer the chance of a crossed path without ability to recognize that kinship; so close and yet just out of reach. Feeding their family patron with a despair they could only begin to see the edges of, just as it had always meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> clutches my lukas family ocs to my chest love these kids (: title from the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson
> 
> find me on tumblr at timelessmulder


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